Republicans eye narrow margin in House

US voters delivered a mixed verdict in elections shaped by inflation and splits around social issues, with Republicans headed toward control of the US House, but by smaller margins than forecast.

With polls closed across most of the US, some of the bellwether races that Republicans had hoped to snatch were held by Democrats. In one of their biggest wins of the night, John Fetterman narrowly defeated Republican television celebrity Mehmet Oz to claim a Senate seat in Pennsylvania.

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who is in line to become speaker with a Republican majority, declared victory early Wednesday before the full results were known. And yet, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham acknowledged in an interview with NBC that the results were “definitely not a Republican wave.”  Or, as Fetterman put in his speech: “We jammed them up, we held the line.”

By early Wednesday, Republicans had won 199 House seats, compared to 172 for Democrats. At least 218 are needed to claim a majority. There were numerous races still to be decided, and some may be subject to court challenges.

President Joe Biden’s party was trying to buck history in Tuesday’s midterms by holding on to their razor-thin congressional majorities with the president’s legislative agenda hanging in the balance. Since World War II, the party holding the White House has, on average, lost 26 House seats and four Senate seats. Barack Obama’s Democrats lost 63 House seats in 2010 and Donald Trump’s Republicans 40 House seats in 2018.

Polls and independent forecasts for the midterms had fluctuated widely over the past several months as voters grappled with inflation near a 40-year high and digested a Supreme Court ruling that ended the nationwide right to abortion. Republicans focused on the economy while Democrats highlighted abortion rights.

Nancy Pelosi, the current House speaker, said Democratic candidates “are strongly outperforming expectations across the country.”

In one crucial Senate race, incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock led GOP candidate Herschel Walker in Georgia by several thousand votes. That contest may be ultimately decided in a runoff if neither candidate gets more than 50% of the vote.

In other closely watched contests, JD Vance defeated Democrat Tim Ryan to keep an Ohio Senate seat in Republican hands, while incumbent Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly was leading Republican Blake Masters. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, was leading his Democratic challenger, Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, with most of the votes counted.

All of the Republican candidates were backed by Trump, who has campaigned across the country and has suggested he will announce his third run for the White House next week.

A clear victory for the GOP came in Florida, which continued making the turn from swing state to Republican stronghold. GOP Governor Ron DeSantis, a potential contender for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, and Senator Marco Rubio handily won re-election. GOP candidates expanded their representation in the House by winning three seats that had been held by Democrats as well as another created in redistricting.

—Bloomberg